Michelle Beadle’s dramatic fall at ESPN has continued: She is being dropped from “NBA Countdown,” sources confirmed to The Post.
This is the second high-profile job Beadle has lost in the past 12 months. Almost a year ago to the date, Beadle was taken off ESPN’s morning show, “Get Up!”
She is still making $5 million per year, but there is no telling what she will do next.
In April, The Post first reported that Beadle’s job on “Countdown” — ESPN’s premier NBA show, which precedes Finals telecasts, among other games — was in peril with Rachel Nichols and Maria Taylor as prime candidates to replace her. In June, the website Sports by Brooks reported Beadle, Paul Pierce and Chauncey Billups would be out.
On Friday, The Athletic tweeted that Nichols and Taylor will share the “Countdown” hosting duties.
A source said ESPN is still figuring out how to make the platoon hosting setup work. Taylor is a huge part of ESPN’s college football coverage, while Nichols is already ominpresent on ESPN’s NBA shows with “The Jump” and the many interviews she conducts.
Taylor wanted to do more NBA, sources said, and Nichols had been fighting to get the lead role on her own. Now, they’ll share it.
Sources told The Post that Billups is leaving “Countdown” to be a TV game analyst for the Los Angeles Clippers. Billups will continue at ESPN, too, but he will shift to games. Pierce’s role on Countdown is still unsettled.
As The Post has previously reported, Jay Williams and Richard Jefferson are prime candidates to land on “Countdown.”
ESPN declined comment, while Beadle did not immediately return a call seeking comment.